


You’ve Got a Friend in Me

by OneOfThoseCrazyGirls



Series: What Should’ve Been [8]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Post-Episode: s01e23 Sacrifice, Post-Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-25
Updated: 2019-02-25
Packaged: 2019-11-05 09:11:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17915972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OneOfThoseCrazyGirls/pseuds/OneOfThoseCrazyGirls
Summary: Takes place starting immediately following 1x23, then follows Felicity through the summer between seasons 1 & 2.This fic is part of the What Should’ve Been ‘verse, but can be read as it’s own standalone thing if you want.





	You’ve Got a Friend in Me

**Author's Note:**

> Hey everyone!
> 
> This is just a little thing about what I think might’ve happened during the break between seasons 1 & 2\. I hope you enjoy!
> 
> (Yes, the title is a reference to the Toy Story theme song, so what?)

Felicity sat at her station in the foundry as everything shook around her.

There was a good chance she was going to die down here— _oh_ _god,_ _whose_ _gonna_ _tell_ _my_ _mother?_

There was also a good chance that her apartment, which just so happened to be located in the part of the Glades currently being destroyed by the earthquake, would also be completely destroyed.

So she was now more than likely homeless and more than likely about to die...and she wasn’t even twenty four.

She was pulled out of her thoughts by the sound of someone coming down the steps. It was Diggle.

“Come on, we’re leaving!” was all he said as he grabbed her wrist and pulled her along as he retreated back up the steps and out of Verdant.

Before too long they were at Dig’s car. Once they were both inside, he peeled out and started driving out of the Glades as fast as possible.

“Where do you live? I’m taking you home.” Dig told her in an urgent tone.

“Oh...um...I live here in the Glades actually. My apartment’s probably been destroyed by now.”

“Alright, then we’re going to my place.” Dig said before making a sharp turn to head in the direction of his apartment.

They arrived about ten minutes later—ten minutes faster than it usually took to get from Verdant to Dig’s apartment thanks to his frantic driving.

When they got inside Dig’s apartment, Felicity stood in his living room while Dig fetched what looked like a first-aid kit.

“Where’s Oliver?” Felicity asked.

“CNRI is in the part of the Glades affected by the quake. Oliver went to go try and save Laurel.” Dig informed her.

“Are you okay?”

“I will be, don’t worry.” Dig replied.

Suddenly, Felicity collapsed on the couch and found herself sobbing out of nowhere.

It all hit her all at once. She almost _died_. She knew signing up with Oliver would be dangerous and this wasn’t the first life-threatening situation she’d been in—sometimes she could still feel that bomb collar on her neck—but _thinking_ about life-threatening danger and actually _facing_ it were two very different things.

Suddenly, Felicity felt a large hand on her shoulder and then she felt Dig sit down on the couch next to her.

“I’m sorry about your apartment, Felicity. I’m sorry about all of this, actually.” Dig said in a soothing and reassuring voice.

“Why? It’s not your fault.” Felicity replied as she took several deep breaths to try to calm down.

“I know. But I’m still sorry.”

Dig’s phone started ringing then and he pulled it out of his pocket to answer it. “It’s Oliver.” Dig told Felicity. “Hey Oliver—...yeah I got Felicity out, we’re at my place now...okay see you in a bit.” Dig hung up and then turned back to Felicity. “Oliver’s fine. He’s on his way here now.”

Felicity’s shoulders slumped in relief at his words. “Good.”

“About your apartment…” Dig began.

“It’s okay. It’s just stuff, right? And I didn’t have any pets or anything.” Felicity tried to say lightly, but probably wasn’t very convincing.

“How about I take you there tomorrow once all the dust is settled and help you collect whatever’s left? And you can stay here as long as you need.”

Felicity wiped away the tears from her face and looked at him. “That’s really not necessary.” She protested.

“Yes it is. We’re friends. What kind of friend would I be if I left you high and dry in your time of need?”

Felicity smiled slightly and leaned into him. “Thanks, Dig.”

A moment later, there was a knock on the door. Dig got up to answer it and when he opened the door, Oliver walked in.

Felicity stood up as soon as he walked in the door. She couldn’t help herself and ran over and hugged him tightly. He didn’t hug her back, but she didn’t care. Knowing that he was safe and well was all that mattered.

“Sorry.” Felicity murmured after she pulled away. “I know you’re not a hugger, I just...” she trailed off not really knowing how to finish that sentence without completely embarrassing herself.

“No, it’s okay.” He replied, but the expression on his face was blank.

“Is Laurel okay?” Dig asked.

Oliver cleared his throat but didn’t meet either of their eyelines. “Yeah, she’s fine.”

“What’s wrong?” Felicity asked, reaching for Oliver’s hand.

“Tommy...” Oliver began, but trailed off and cleared his throat again as tears sprang to his eyes. “Tommy’s dead.” He chocked out.

“Oh my god!” Felicity gasped. “Oliver, I’m so sorry!”

Oliver simply nodded his head once without saying anything. After a few moments, he finally made eye contact with them. “Are you two okay?”

“Yeah, we’re fine.” Dig replied. “Felicity’s a bit shaken up, but she’ll be okay, right?” He glanced over at her as he asked.

“Yeah, I’ll be fine.” Felicity said reassuringly.

“Good.” Oliver said with a nod of his head. “Well then, I need to go.”

“Okay...but we’ll see you later, right?” Felicity asked.

Oliver left without a word.

* * *

 

The next day, just as he promised, Dig took Felicity to her—destroyed—apartment. Most of the building had crumbled to the ground, but the landlord had tried to collect as many of the possessions he could find and set them out on the curb for tenants to collect.

Felicity’s apartment was on the second of seven floors so there was nothing left of any of her possessions. Luckily, everything she owned that was actually worth anything, she kept in her purse which she had with her in the foundry and took to Diggle’s place when he came to get her. And anything nostalgic like family photos and childhood awards were all in safe-keeping with her mother. Everything else she had in her place was mostly junk she found at GoodWills and garage sales. The only other things, besides the stuff in her purse that could be considered valuable were her clothes, but she was looking to change up her wardrobe anyway.

“See anything of yours?” Dig asked as they walked around the piles.

“Nothing that’s still intact.” Felicity replied

“I’m sorry, Felicity.” Dig said, apologetically, placing his hand on her shoulder to reassure her.

“It’s okay. I’ve been saving money since the first job I got when I was fifteen and I have pretty good credit, so it shouldn’t be hard to find a new place.” Felicity explained. “And I’ll make sure I find one in a better neighborhood this time.” She joked.

“Well, like I said last night, you can stay with me as long as you need. Everything you need, like clothes and toiletries and stuff, we can buy them.”

“Thanks, Dig.” She replied with a smile.

* * *

 

The next few days passed pretty monotonously. Felicity and Diggle didn’t see Oliver at all, but they figured he just needed some space after losing Tommy and his mother’s arrest. Felicity didn’t have to work because Queen Consolidated had been temporarily shut down in the immediate aftermath of the quake and Mrs. Queen’s confession. All the employees were told that it would re-open “soon” but who knew when that would be.

Tommy’s funeral happened about five days after the Undertaking, but since Felicity and Diggle didn’t really know Tommy, they didn’t attend.

The day after Tommy’s funeral—and six days after the Undertaking—Felicity and Diggle decided it was time to go back to the foundry and asses the damage.

Thankfully, Verdant and the Arrowcave itself only sustained minimal damage that was pretty easily fixed.

When Felicity and Diggle arrived in the foundry, they found a bottle of wine sitting on top of a letter addressed to the two of them.

Diggle picked up the note and read it aloud.

“Diggle and Felicity...” Dig began, “I thought about coming to say goodbye to you guys in person but I thought this would be easier. I’m leaving. Don’t look for me. Oliver. P.S. Felicity—I still owe you wine. Sorry it took me so long.”

At those words, Felicity inspected the bottle of wine more closely.

 _Lafite_ _Rothschild_ _1982_

That was the exact wine he’d promised her if he won the “scavenger hunt”.

“That’s it?” Felicity asked bitterly. “He leaves, probably forever, and all we get is a few words on a piece of paper?”

Dig doesn’t answer her question but, instead, asks one of his own. “What’s with the wine?”

“Uh...a few months ago he asked me to decrypt a flash drive for him—for the Blackhawk car heists—anyway, he told me it was for a scavenger hunt and that the prize was this wine. He said he’d give me a bottle if I helped him. He kept his word.” Felicity let out a bitter, humorless laugh at her last words. “How could he just be gone?! Where would he even go?!”

“I don’t know.” Diggle replied. “But he said he didn’t want us looking for him.”

“And we’re just gonna listen?!” Felicity scoffed.

“Felicity, he lost a lot. Maybe he just needs some space. We should respect that. He’ll probably come back eventually.”

“We don’t know that. He didn’t say he was planning on coming back. Look, Dig, if you don’t want to look for him, that’s fine, but I’m going to.”

Over the next several weeks, Felicity spent every waking moment of her free time using every method she could think of to find Oliver. She hacked into every satellite from every agency across the globe that she could get her hands on.

Queen Consolidated opened back up two weeks after the Undertaking and Felicity went back to work, but when she wasn’t working her regular job, she was looking. She had algorithms and facial recognition working 24/7. He couldn’t have just dropped off the face of the Earth. He had to be _somewhere_. As long as he was somewhere on the planet, she would find him.

Meanwhile, in anticipation of Oliver coming back, just in case he decided to pick up his crusade again she called one of her old friends from MIT—Max—to make some stuff to spruce up the Arrowcave. He had majored in mechanical engineering and that, combined with her skills in electrical engineering and computer sciences, they were able to totally revamp the foundry in no time.

Max did everything for free and she knew he’d keep the secret about the foundry because they were like family—at least they used to be. Max was her ex-boyfriend, Cooper’s, twin brother. They were all at MIT at the same time and Felicity and Max had gotten really close when they were at school. They had sorta lost touch after Cooper died, but they would sometimes call each other once or twice a year just to catch up.

Besides, the other reason Max wouldn’t tell anyone about the foundry is because Felicity didn’t really tell him anything. All she told him was that she needed some help with some tech and that was the extent of his knowledge of the project.

She also decided to order Oliver a new, custom-made bow. She had to do pretty extensive research about archery to make sure the bow she ordered was a quality one that would work the way he wanted it to. In the end, she hoped she got it right.

After about two months, Diggle had apparently had enough. One night— _morning,_ _actually_ —at about 5 AM, Diggle was getting ready for his morning run and Felicity was still up from the night before running her various searches.

“Felicity, did you sleep at all last night?” Diggle asked all the sudden, causing Felicity to jump in fright.

“Holy frak! You scared the crap out of me!” Felicity half-shouted.

“Did you. Get. Any. Sleep.” Diggle asked again, punctuating each word.

“I nodded off for a few minutes, I think.” Felicity replied nonchalantly before returning to her work.

“Felicity!” Diggle said sternly, catching her attention again. “What is up with you? You spend all your time running your searches, you barely eat or sleep anymore. You only do just enough of each so you don’t die of starvation or sleep deprivation. I’m worried about you.” He confessed.

“Well, you’ll be happy to hear that you won’t have to worry about me much longer because I finally found my own place.” Felicity informed him. “It’s a great little townhouse on North Highbury Avenue. It’s not in the Glades; in fact the neighborhood is one of the safest in the city. And I can get a loan from the bank to help me pay for it. I should be moved out by the end of the month.”

“That’s great, Felicity, I’m really happy for you. But I’m still worried about you. Ever since Oliver left, you’ve been...different. You’ve been _obsessed_ with finding him. I mean, I get it, he’s our friend but—“

Felicity cut him off with a humorless chuckle. “No, you don’t get it, Dig. He’s not just a friend to me.”

“What?”

Maybe it was the lack of sleep or the few glasses of wine she’d had or the fact that the sun hadn’t come up yet and most of the lights inside the apartment were still off so they were surrounded by darkness or maybe a combination of all of the above—whatever the reason may be, Felicity decided to confess the one thing she had tried to keep buried deep down.

“I love him.” Felicity confessed quietly.

Diggle didn’t say anything, but Felicity knew he heard her because he sat down on the couch next to her—but still kept a few inches of space between them.

“I didn’t realize it until after he was gone. I guess it’s true what they say, you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone.” Felicity admitted, “I’m not stupid.” She continued. “I know there’s no way in hell he’ll ever feel the same way but...I don’t know...maybe I _am_ stupid. I just...I have to find him, Dig.” Without realizing it, silent tears had started sliding down Felicity’s cheeks as she spoke.

Diggle cleared his throat before speaking. “You’re not stupid, Felicity. And I understand your feelings. To be honest, I’ve kind of suspected for a while that maybe you did have feelings for him but I wasn’t a hundred percent sure.” Dig told her. “Having said that...you’ve been looking for Oliver for two months straight and you haven’t found anything?”

“No.”

“Maybe it’s because Oliver doesn’t _want_ to be found. You’re killing yourself looking for him and it’s not healthy. I’m not trying to sound insensitive or say that you should give up looking completely, I’m just worried about you.”

Felicity sat silently for several moments. Eventually, the tears stopped and she wiped them off her face. “Maybe you’re right.” She acknowledged. “If Oliver wanted to be found, I would’ve done it by now. I just have to accept that he’s gone and move on.” Felicity shut her laptop then and set it to the side. “I’m gonna go to bed, if you don’t mind.” Felicity then stood up from the couch and headed to the guest room that had been her bedroom for the past two months.

“You know, Felicity, if you ever wanna talk, I’m here.”

“Thanks, Dig.” Felicity said with a small smile before going back to her room.

* * *

 

Felicity kept her word and stopped looking for Oliver. She kept the programs running that she had already started, but didn’t start any new ones and didn’t expect anything to come from them.

She moved out of Diggle’s apartment and into the townhouse, but she and Dig would still make a point to have lunch together every day. Since Oliver was gone, Dig was no longer working as his personal bodyguard, so he started working freelance security.

Felicity’s own job was in jeopardy because of the hostile takeover by Stellmore International so she was working on updating her resume. She hoped that, even if she did get laid off, she would still be able to stay in Starling, but the odds of that were slim.

Eventually, summer turned to autumn, and Felicity had started to come to terms with the fact that Oliver was never coming back. She also accepted her feelings for him. Even though she knew they could never be together and he would never reciprocate her feelings, she hoped that, wherever he was, he was, at least, happy. And, maybe one day, she would be able to move on and get over her feelings completely.

Everything was back to normal. Back to the way it was before she met Oliver Queen.

And then, one day, while she was sitting at home watching re-runs of Doctor Who, she got an alert on her phone. When she saw what the alert said, she actually dropped her half-full glass of wine and it spilled all over her floor.

But she couldn’t be bothered by that because… _she_ _found_ _him_.

Felicity immediately dialed Dig’s number and was practically jittery with anticipation.

“ _Pick_ _the_ _frak_ _up_ _already!_ ” She whisper-shouted into her phone. Finally, he did. “He’s on Lian Yu!” Felicity practically shouted into the phone as soon as Dig picked up.

“What?” Dig asked.

“I found Oliver. He’s on Lian Yu.” Felicity explained. “We have to get him.”

“Felicity...”

“Dig, _please_!” Felicity pleaded, desperately.

There were a few moments of silence before Diggle sighed. “Alright. I guess we’re going to Lian Yu.”

**Author's Note:**

> Re Felicity living in the Glades: when I started thinking about Felicity’s background, I know that Donna said she worked 60 hours a week which made me think they probably didn’t have much money. And Felicity probably went to MIT on a scholarship and maybe worked a part-time job while in school. And, although I’ve never worked in IT, it seemed like Felicity was just your standard office drone at Queen Consolidated, meaning she probably wasn’t making much money. So if she wasn’t making much money at QC and she didn’t have much money to begin with, she probably wasn’t living in one of Starling’s nicer neighborhoods. So if she was working a low-income job where would she be living? Well, the Glades of course. But the townhouse she buys at the end is the one we see her living in in seasons 2 & 3.
> 
> ===
> 
> Thanks for reading!
> 
> I would really appreciate your feedback so please leave a comment and don’t forget to hit that kudos button! :)
> 
> Find me on Tumblr: oneofthosecrazygirls-fics


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